Opinion

The cheery letters from real estate agents pile up daily in our letterbox. They all want to inform me of the wonderfully high prices their recent home sales received in our eastern suburbs beachside area in Sydney.

As the Abbott government was retreating from its attempts to curb the inexorable growth of budget spending on subsidised health services on Tuesday, some were digesting an ominous idea from the Business Council of Australia's pre-budget submission.

Risk has become confronting reality for DP World with the Port of Melbourne Corporation moving to increase the container lifter's rent by 750 per cent as the state's pursues plans for port privatisation and expansion.

Moral and legal niceties are luxuries in international relations. The primary currencies are national interest and reasons of state. This reality faces all Australians urging Indonesian President Joko Widodo to spare the lives of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Treasurer Joe Hockey releases the fourth Intergenerational Report on Thursday. In theory, the five-yearly study of the impact of demographic change on economic growth and the budget will tell us about the country's future over the next 40 years. In practice, its forecasts depend on the highly uncertain assumptions of today.